


easy, tiger

by stupidsecretthings



Category: Bon Appétit Test Kitchen (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, There is a cat, brad has a bit of a crisis, brad misses claire, claire does a thing, established relationship braffitz, poor hunzi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22636522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidsecretthings/pseuds/stupidsecretthings
Summary: brad’s been in canada for a week when claire starts acting strange.
Relationships: Brad Leone/Claire Saffitz
Comments: 5
Kudos: 52





	easy, tiger

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write something short, and this is kind of short? maybe? it's 3x the length it should be because obviously i am my own worst enemy
> 
> enjoy it anyway?

Brad’s been in Canada for a week when Claire starts acting strange. 

He flew out last weekend, waking up at a time Claire would balk at to have a quick shower and make it to the airport in time for his 8am flight. He tripped over at least seven things (he didn’t even know there were that many things for him to trip over) trying to navigate their bedroom in the dark, avoiding waking Claire up at all costs. Despite his best efforts to slip out unnoticed, Claire stirred in her sleep, hand reaching out to search for him, eyes flickering open when her search yielded no results. “Brad?” she murmured, still in a state closer resembling asleep than awake. 

“Here, babe,” he whispered back, crossing the room (tripping over something, again) and leaning down to press a kiss against her forehead. With her hair fanned out across her pillow and a sleepy smile crossing her lips, eyes still closed, Brad vividly remembers thinking he’d never seen anyone more beautiful in his life. “Go back to sleep,” he told her, despite thinking she’s already done exactly that, pressing a fleeting kiss to her lips. Then, he left. 

Since, Brad and Claire have FaceTimed every day and exchanged texts during lulls in their schedules, and missing Claire is _exhausting_, but it happens every time he travels and he’s getting better at it, slowly but surely. He still gets to see her face, still gets to watch her nose crinkle and her eyes light up when she smiles that smile reserved for him and him alone. Claire sends him texts complaining about Rapo when he does something so characteristically _Rapo_ that the only adequate response is a sigh and an eye-roll, and Brad sends her texts about how close to insanity he’s managed to drive Hunzi this time (he gets a little closer every day, much to his — and Claire’s, though she’s more reluctant to admit it — amusement). 

So, when Claire starts acting… odd, Brad is understandably concerned. She goes a whole day without texting him, and Brad is so jittery and unnerved by it that Hunzi tells him he doesn’t think any of the day’s footage is usable. He sends a string of texts, all with increasing urgency, that remain unanswered. Brad and Hunzi go out for dinner that night, in a desperate bid on Hunzi’s behalf to distract Brad, who’s bursting at the seams with anxious energy. Brad drinks possibly a little more than he should with dinner, quickly switching from a beer to something with a little more kick.

Claire still doesn’t reply. 

“Hunzi!” Brad cries in protest as Hunzi, eventually reaching a level of sheer frustration that means he can no longer cope with Brad restlessly checking his phone every other second, plucks Brad phone from his hand, and promptly turns it off, slipping it into his jacket pocket. “What the hell, bud? Give it back.”

“Nope,” Hunzi shrugs, levelling Brad with a stare that is daring him to disagree, “You’re gonna drive yourself insane; I’m only saving you from yourself.”

“Bu—”

“_No_,” Hunzi scolds emphatically, “Claire’s _fine_. You would’ve been told by now if she wasn’t, and you know that. She’ll reply to you when she can, Brad.”

Brad’s shoulders slump in defeat. He would try to fight Hunzi more on the subject, but, mildly inebriated as he is, he does not, at present, have the coordination to do so. 

* * *

A few hours (and drinks) later, Hunzi and Brad are walking down the hallway of the fourth floor of their hotel, ready to split and head back to their respective hotel rooms to get some rest before they start shooting again tomorrow morning. Hunzi presses Brad’s phone into his hand. “Try not to worry about her too much if she hasn’t replied, okay? You know better than anyone how she gets,” Hunzi says, and smiles a vaguely sympathetic smile at Brad before heading a few doors down and entering his hotel room, leaving Brad in the hallway alone. 

Brad presses the power button, putting the phone back in his pocket when the apple symbol starts glowing on his screen, then unlocks the door, enters the room, and flops down onto the bed with a resounding _poof_. Not quite as dramatic as he thought it would be. 

The world is a little hazy when Brad flips over, opening his eyes to stare at a ceiling that, although logically Brad knows it isn't, appears to be moving. His phone buzzes against his thigh, and Brad swears he’s never moved so fast this drunk before. When he pulls it out, he sees three messages from Claire, and his heart squeezes painfully in his chest, a dizzy mix of alcohol, relief, and residual worry. 

**Sorry! I left my phone at home**

**I can confirm I am not dying, dead, or in any immediate danger. No axe-wielding murderers in sight, promise**

**You can stop worrying now Leone**

It’s almost midnight in Vancouver, which means it’s nearly three in the morning in New York, and there’s no way she’s still awake. But Brad can’t believe she’s okay unless he sees it for himself, can’t leave her safety up to chance because she’s _everything_ and he needs her to be okay _always_ (and maybe he’s a huge sap, but he just wants to see her face; maybe he’s also more drunk than he should be and feeling things tenfold because of it).

The phone rings six times before she answers, and when the little ‘_connecting…_’ shows at the top of the screen he heaves a sigh of relief, sitting up too quickly and feeling his vision swim because of it. “_Brad?_” He hears her before he sees her, voice scratched and rough from sleep and a yawn creeping up on her. 

The screen connects, and Claire’s in bed in their bedroom, as dark as he knew it would be, as sleep rumpled as he knew she would be, and he’s never felt relief like it. “Hey, babe,” he murmurs softly. 

“_Why’re you calling me at three in the morning?_” she groans, annoyance filtering in through her voice, but even through the heavy blanket of darkness surrounding her Brad can see the ghost of a smile on her lips.

“I just— I miss ya is all,” he tells her, voice whisper soft and marginally slurred. “We didn’t get to talk today.”

At this, he hears a puff of laughter escape her. “_You were worried about me,_” she says knowingly, cracking one of her eyes open to actually look at the phone screen, to look at _him_ through it. He knows what she’ll see: blue eyes, glassy from the beer and wine and whiskey he drank (he’s going to regret it in the morning, he knows—and from the look on Claire’s face, she does too), hair askew, and that soft, soft smile he only ever gives to her. “_That’s why you called. You needed to see._”

“So what if it is, huh? S’only ‘cause I love ya, Half-Sour.” 

She smiles, her own version of a soft, adoring smile only he ever receives, it’s tinged by sleep and love and it’s so _fond_ that it makes his heart ache every time; he’ll never be able to believe that she likes him back, _loves_ him back, even a couple years in. “_I didn’t say it was a bad thing, Brad_,” she murmurs, eye slipping closed again. Brad can see how exhausted she is through the screen, and when she attempts to say, “_I love you too,_” through a yawn, he knows it’s time to go. 

“G’night, Claire. Sleep good, ‘kay?”

“_Night, Brad,_” she mumbles, and Brad ends the call. 

* * *

The next morning, Brad wakes up with the hangover he feels he deserves, given the undeserved ringer he put Hunzi through the night before. After a greasy breakfast, some painkillers, water, Brad feels a little more human, and gets to the lobby fifteen minutes before he has to be there. He kills time on his phone, sending a couple of texts to Claire, wishing her a good morning, hopes she slept well, and where did she go yesterday, anyway? He doesn’t get a response before Hunzi appears, walking through the lobby to Brad with his camera equipment all ready to go. 

“Hey, bud,” Brad greets, standing. 

“Hey,” Hunzi returns, then shoots Brad a shrewd glance. “So, was Claire dying like you seemed to think she was?”

Brad flushes, and grumbles out a, “_no_”. Hunzi looks smug as hell, and Brad elbows him as they leave, Hunzi laughing the whole damn time. 

* * *

Claire _does_ talk to him, but her messages are few and far between. Brad’s trying his best not to get too worked up about it, because, she’d tell him if there was something going on, right? If she needed him? He _thinks_ she would, and especially after yesterday’s debacle he’s trying to shut his overactive imagination down, but is finding it resoundingly difficult. 

Claire usually has her phone nearby. He knows she has it with her, unlike yesterday, because she is replying, just… slowly. He knows she’s not in the TK because she doesn’t shoot again until he gets back next week. He knows all these things, but he doesn’t know why she’s being so slow, so _vague._

She wished him good morning, and she says she slept just fine, other than being woken up by this guy who worries about her way too much, but she stays suspiciously quiet about what she was doing yesterday. She’s also reticent about what she’s doing today, about why she’s being so distant. 

It’s weird, okay? Claire’s being weird. 

Brad doesn’t like it. At all. He misses Claire all the time _anyway_, but then she throws whatever spanner in the works that she is doing, and that whole missing her thing becomes about a hundred times more intense. Hunzi complains that Brad’s _trying_ to make his job more difficult, and Brad decides to steer into the skid and wink, much to Hunzi’s obvious chagrin. 

They wrap for the day, and Brad opts out of joining everyone for drinks, opting instead for heading back to his hotel room, wanting to put his anxious mind to rest once and for all. He putters around the room for a while before he calls her, as if she’ll know he’s playing it cool all the way in New York, as if they’re in the stage of the relationship where they need to be doing that anyway.

Brad feels entirely off-kilter, so used to talking to Claire all the time, even when he’s in a different time-zone to her. Has he mentioned that it’s weird?

He calls her; she answers on the fourth ring. “_Hey, babe,_” she greets, seemingly absentmindedly, glancing briefly into the camera but almost immediately tearing her gaze away to look at something beyond the phone. Brad frowns slightly. 

“Uh, hey, Half-Sour. Whatcha doin’?”

“_Huh? _she asks, and she seems vaguely startled when she looks back at her phone screen, like she’d totally forgotten he was there. Ouch. “_Oh, um, nothing much. Why?_”

“You seem kinda distracted there, babe,” he tells her, and she looks down at him, all fond like she does, and he forgets the earlier sting of her distraction completely. Well, almost completely, because as quickly as she glanced down at him, brown eyes on blue, she glances away into the distance again. 

“_I’m not—_” she pauses, mutters something he can’t make out. “_—distracted, I’m just, uh, working on something. How was your day? Were you doing that fishing thing?_”

“Uh, no, that was a few days ago. We were cookin’ some stuff today. What are you working on sat on the floor?” he asks, and is met with a sheepish Claire. 

“_It’s nothing, seriously. What were—_” she stops, abruptly, leaning forward, and he can hear her mumbling, “_no, no, no, let’s not do that,_” under her breath and he has the distinct feeling he’s not supposed to be hearing anything. “_Uh, Brad?_” She asks, a shy, somewhat stressed smile on her lips, “_Is it okay if we talk tomorrow? I’m kinda busy._”

‘Nothing much’ is starting to seem like an increasingly abstract concept. “What? Uh, yeah, sure, whatever you need, Claire.”

She grins into the camera. “_Thanks, babe. I love you._” 

He hears the beeps that tell him the call's over right as he’s about to say, “I love you too.” 

Well. If he was looking to alleviate the concerns he had about Claire, _that_ certainly didn’t help him do it. 

It’s safe to say that Brad doesn’t sleep much that night. (Or any other night). 

* * *

The rest of the week is much the same. There are a few occasions where Claire is so very _Claire_ that he barely remembers her acting off at all, but then she’ll look startled at something beyond the screen, something soundless, and she’ll act jittery for the rest of the call. His flight is on Saturday morning, and it can’t come around soon enough. 

He’s on edge the whole week, and Hunzi gets closer and closer to going through with Brad’s murder and hiring a look alike actor the more time passes. 

Brad doesn’t think he’d blame him. 

* * *

Brad Leone is a nervous flyer. 

It’s terribly inconvenient given how often he travels, and how much he enjoys travelling, but there’s something about planes that unnerves him, no matter how many times he’s been on one without incident. As it turns out, Brad Leone is an _especially_ nervous flyer when he’s going home to his long-term pastry chef girlfriend who’s been acting weird for a week. 

Who knew?

Hunzi, as far as Brad’s concerned, deserves a raise and a vacation for having to put up with him. Brad’s leg is bouncing the entire five hour flight, and he keeps asking questions to which there’s no possible way Hunzi could have the answer to, including (but not limited to): Why do you think she’s being weird? Do you think she’s mad at me? What have I done to make her mad at me? Oh my God, _Hunzi_, what if she’s come to her senses and she’s breaking up with me?

Hunzi breaks, eventually, the inevitable break in his sanity coming to fruition. “Jesus Christ, Brad,” he sighs, deep and entirely too existential. _He just wanted two relaxing weeks in Canada_. “Claire is not going to break up with you. I have literally never seen two people more in love than the two of you, it’s gross. Really. Stop worrying, and more importantly, would you let me sleep?” 

“Right. You’re right. But—”

“Goodnight, Brad,” Hunzi says, closing his eyes to punctuate the point. Brad huffs, counting down the hours until he sees Claire. Four to go. 

The cab Brad gets back from the airport pulls up outside of his and Claire’s upper east side apartment at approximately two in the afternoon. Brad is thoroughly exhausted, having barely slept in a week and being rudely awoken by his alarm at three; the well of seemingly boundless Brad Leone Energy™ is beginning to run dry. He doesn’t think he’s ever experienced a longer elevator ride in his life. 

Brad enters the apartment and is immediately met by the sound of Claire cooing affection at something (…someone?). Given that Claire is presently unaware of Brad’s presence in the apartment, Brad is willing to bet that it isn’t at him. 

“Uh, babe?” he calls out, feeling mildly nervous, and every worry and concern and thought he’d written off as too outlandish to be true returns with a vengeance, his brain spinning and working so fast he feels dizzy. “If you’re having an affair, now would be the time to tell me so I don’t see something I really don’t wanna see,” he jokes, and _oh god_ he hopes—

“Hey!” Claire smiles, her head appearing in the doorway, as if by magic. Brad startles slightly, but finds himself melting at the look on her face: delighted, excited (worried?), adoring. She presses up onto her toes to press a soft kiss to his lips, and suddenly Brad doesn’t remember any of the concerns he’s been harbouring for a week. (He definitely does; why did she close the door to living room behind her?). “I missed you,” she murmurs against his lips, pulling back to look at him. 

“I missed you too,” he promises, capturing her lips in a kiss just this side of heated, feeling all the lingering feelings of frustration and what ifs swelling into a fever pitch, pent up energy begging to be used. 

“Mmmm, wait, wait, wait,” she mumbles, her words muffled against him. “_Brad_, I need—”

Brad leans back from her with visible effort, leaning his forehead against hers, breathless, “What?” She taps his chest, indicating for him to move back, and, when did he press her against the wall?

Claire disappears into the living room again, telling Brad to stay put. When her head appears in the doorway again, she looks as anxious as she does happy. Ah, there’s that stressed, overwhelming feeling in Brad’s chest again. “Okay, so,” she starts, apprehensive. “I may have done a thing.”

“A thing?” he repeats, slowly, hesitantly, feeling like he’ll combust if she doesn’t just tell him already but like he’ll combust if she does. “What thing?” 

She moves her arms so he can see them, and, subsequently, the very small ball of fluff she's cradling that's blinking up at him. “This thing.”

“That thing,” he repeats, stunned. “Is that… a kitten?” 

“No, Brad,” she sasses, and he’s not looking at her face but he can hear the eye-roll in her voice, “it’s a lion. I thought I’d buy one to spice things up a bit.” 

“You got ripped off there, babe. Worst lion I ever saw,” he says, his eyes meeting hers again, and his words were deadly serious but his eyes are playful and teasing, and he sees the anxiety knotting between Claire’s shoulders drop away. “He’s not even scary.” 

“You like him?” she asks, “I know I should’ve asked you first but—”

“I like him, Claire, what’s he called? And where’d he come from?” 

“Felix,” she replies, stroking Felix as she does, looking down at him fondly. “You remember that day you thought I’d died?”

“I didn’t— yes, I remember.”

“Well I went with Dorothy to the animal shelter to get her kids a rabbit, and oh my god, Brad, he was just sitting there. He was all on his own and he looked so sad, apparently he was the runt of the litter and nobody wanted him but he’s _so cute_.”

“Aw, jeez,” Brad groans, “I’m gonna have to fight this little guy for affection aren’t I?” 

She levels him with an incredulous look. “Brad, look at him. He’s got you beat, babe.” 

“Damn," he sighs, "I _knew_ it.” 

Later, Brad admits that he was stressed all week, that she was acting off and it made him nervous as hell. She laughs, hits him, tells him unequivocally that he is an _idiot_ because who the hell would she leave him for? Far as she’s concerned she’s got just what she needs right here with him. 

Then, Felix starts meowing for attention and Claire stops comforting Brad in favour of comforting Felix.

That fuckin’ cat. 

* * *

Although he wouldn’t admit it, Brad, despite a few initial protests that he’s _not a cat guy_, is actually very fond of Felix the cat. Claire has some photos of Brad and Felix that she’s not allowed to share, under threat of death, but are beloved items in her personal collection. 

One of them, the home screen of her phone, shows the length of Brad sprawled across their living room couch, his feet dangling off the end of it, his face lit up by the mild glow of the TV, fast asleep. On his chest, Felix is curled up, his tail resting on Brad’s cheek. 

She can't help but notice that Felix is featured on Brad’s home screen too. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you maybe enjoyed this insane and ridiculously ridiculous piece of writing. i have zero excuses.
> 
> i have a tumblr that i use sometimes and i am inept enough at technology that i can't link it for you, but it's @stupidsecretthings nevertheless :)


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